No more school staff cuts

St. Johns County School Superintendent Joe Joyner is looking for ways to fund unexpected spikes in gasoline and food costs, but he says the needed money won't come at the expense of any more teachers' jobs.

"We're are at the bare bones as far as teachers are concerned. I don't know how we can cut any more and still meet the statutory class size requirements," Joyner said. "I don't anticipate any additional staff cuts."

He called the last two weeks a "roller coaster" of emotion as county school staff got good news -- higher test scores and three high schools making Newsweek magazine's list of the nation's top high schools -- and bad news -- higher fuel and food prices and predictions of less sales tax revenue.

The School Board's lobbying firm, Mixon & Associates, predicted that more money might be cut from schools in 2009 depending on the state of the economy.

Juhan Mixon, of the firm, warned that sales tax predictions made by the state are already falling short, and if that continues the Legislature may make further cuts.

"They're not doing anything to us at the moment that we can tell," Mixon told the board at a meeting last week.

That was small comfort for St. Johns, already struggling with making more than $11 million in cuts to the school budget for the 2008-2009 school year. The cuts come even as the system expects an additional 300 students for that year.

While Gov. Charlie Crist hasn't yet signed the state budget, and there are no predictions on when he will, officials expect he will use his line item veto. Whether that will help schools isn't certain.

Joyner said the St. Johns district has already taken expected cuts at the start of 2009 into their cutbacks. There's no way, he said, to make those cuts in the middle of a school year and not disrupt classes and students.

While some teachers have not ended up in their original jobs or at their original schools, School District personnel have worked to find them a job.

"I'm very pleased with the work of personnel placing displaced teachers," Joyner said. "We did our very best for teachers even for those not on tenure."

Displaced teachers are those who have received good evaluations who do not yet have a posting. About 90 percent of those teachers now have a place, school officials said.

"We have placed 120 of our 140 displaced teachers and the rest we're working on next week," Joyner said.

That's not the case in some Florida school systems. In Volusia County, for instance, 193 non-reappointed teachers were fired. Some will probably be hired back by Volusia.

Joyner didn't want that to happen in St. Johns County.

"I just felt we had a commitment to our people," he said.

School officials are now looking at the unexpected increases in the cost of fuel and the cost of food.

"The cost of fuel has really sort of put us in a dilemma. It's very difficult to anticipate what the average price is going to be. It's been going up a dime a month," Joyner said.

The district buys through the state bidding process so they pay less than the average. The price is still high.

"At the beginning of the year we budgeted at $3.50 a gallon, and I thought we over-budgeted," Joyner said.

But even on state bid the system is now paying $4 a gallon for diesel and that price continues to increase. Predictions for future costs now range from $4.50 to $6 a gallon.

It would be easy, he said, to pay for the increased cost of fuel if schools could charge for bus transportation, but that's not allowed.

Among possible cuts the district is looking at are eliminating and consolidating routes as well as reducing the number of stops.

"There are a number of things that could happen," Joyner said. "It's not like we do a poor job managing, but it is very expensive."

Currently the St. Johns County bus system ranks in the top five in state transportation for efficient ridership.

About 60 percent of the cost of transportation comes from the state. The district funds the remaining 40 percent out of its operating budget.

"If it's a matter of trading off a teacher or paraprofessional, then it's really important to keep costs down," Joyner said. "If the state reimbursed us the cost of the mandate, we wouldn't have this problem."

State law requires that all students over two miles out -- as well as all exceptional education students -- be provided transportation.

Increased fuel costs are also affecting maintenance costs and have "dramatically affected" food service costs.

"Our food service has risen over 25 percent for our cost in food," Joyner said.

Food service is an enterprise operation, which means it pays for itself.

Joyner says there is a possibility that the price of meals will have to go up.